Then you must learn to endure them while you are in Fernando do
Noronha itself," went on the Brazilian. "The island absolutely swarms
with rats; some of the larger varieties are rather dangerous."

"Sufferin' Moses!" groaned Watts. "It'll be the death o' me."

"Wot color are they?" asked Coke. De Sylva's reply was given in a tone
of surprise. Certainly these hardy mariners had selected an unusual
topic for discussion at a critical moment.

"The common dark gray," he said.

"That's all right, then," sneered Coke. "Watts don't mind 'em gray.
They're old messmates of his. It's w'en they're pink or green that he
fights shy of 'em."

"I hate rats of any sort----" began Watts hotly, spurred to anger by an
audible snigger among the men, but De Sylva stopped his protest
peremptorily. It was idiotic, this bantering when the next half hour
might be their last.

"You must learn to guard your tongue," he said with harsh distinctness.
"We cannot have our plans marred by a fool's outcry."

Nevertheless, the chief officer of the _Andromeda_ was far from being a
fool. He had cut an inglorious figure during the wreck, but he was
sober enough now, and it hurt his pride to be jeered at by his own
skipper and treated with contumely by one whom he privately classed as
a Dago. He had the good sense to realize that the present was no fit
time for a display of temper; but he nursed his wrath. Dom Corria
would have been well advised had he followed the counsel given so
ungraciously, and guarded his own tongue.

It might well be that the ex-President, whose fortunes were on the
tiptoe of desperate hazard, was beginning to despair. He may have
scanned the meager forces at his disposal and felt that he was asking
the gods for more than they could grant. A few minutes earlier he had
put forth the suave suggestion that Hozier should be given the
speediest chance of securing the girl's safety. That was politic;
perhaps his stanch nerve was yielding to the strain, now that the two
islanders were gone on their doubtful quest. Be that as it may, his
attitude did not encourage light conversation. Even Coke withheld some
jibe at the unfortunate mate's expense. A chill silence fell on the
little group. The more imaginative among them were calculating the
exact kind of lurch taken by the unstable raft that would mean
"drowning without a cry."

Thus the minutes sped, until a dim shape emerged from the opposite
blackness. It came